Derek

NOTE: This is a character blog and, as such, is written in the voice of the character. Also, the dates are the way they are so that they coincide with the novels in The Élan Series. If you have anything particular you’d like to know about a character’s past, leave a comment or send me an email. I’ll see what I can do.

April 24

I think I’m dream jumping. I don’t know if it’s part of my Actuary gift or if I’m just losing my freakin’ mind. I mean, who can actually put themselves in somebody else’s dream? That’s crazy, right?

Anyhow, last night, when I slept over at Jesse’s apartment, I dreamed about family crap, and this whole mess going on with Cheyenne. God, don’t get me started. But then I started dreaming about my brother and this woman. They were eating somewhere, but why would I be dreaming about them eating? That’s why I think it might have been Jesse’s dream. He acted like he knew her. The weird thing is that when they got up to leave, I followed the woman, not my brother.

She was beautiful, but so sad. And that’s the other weird thing. I knew how she felt. Even in the dream, her sadness hit me like a punch to the gut.

I followed her for a while, and we didn’t go to normal places. First we were in an apartment, then in a backyard with music and lots of people, like a party. We ended up in an open area. It was dark and there was a huge bonfire burning, lighting the yard. That’s when the dream started fading out and the neighbor next door left and slammed the door so hard I woke up.

Is she important? I don’t know. But I’ll hang on to the sketch just in case.

April 23

Chey and I are officially done. I’m sick of that girl hitting on every one of my friends and not thinking I’ll find out about it. I may have let it slide in the past, but I’ll be damned if she makes a fool of me again.

In other news, Jesse has invited me to stay with him for the weekend at his apartment. He said they have some killer parties at the frat houses on campus and even though I’m too young to drink, I can see what college life is like. Not that I plan on going. I don’t have it in me to actually pay to go to school. But to have a chance to hook up with some hot college girls, well that’s something I don’t plan on passing up.

April 21

It’s kinda fun to send these feelings into Chey to watch her wiggle and squirm. Sorta like my own personal revenge for her cheating. She doesn’t know that I know about her feelings for Josh Stone, but still, she’s supposed to be my girlfriend. And she’s not supposed to be gettin’ hot for other guys. So, even though it grosses me out, I’ll create fake feelings for some of my male teachers and project them onto Cheyenne in class. She’ll make a fool out of herself tryin’ to flirt with them and get them to notice her. I’ve even done it with some of the female teachers. Chey doesn’t know how to act then, getting’ all excited for Ms. DeWitt, with her blue-gray twisted bun and pleated granny skirts.

Dori ‘sees’ me doin’ this. She’s a little pissed that I’m abusin’ my gift, but, hey, it’s mine and I’ve got to learn to use it, right? She says that I might, how’d she put it? Oh, yeah, “irreparably damage the order of things and lose my gift if I abuse it.” I didn’t want the stinkin’ thing in the first place! If I’m forced to have it, by god, I’m gonna use it. I’m only sixteen. What’d she think, that I’d mature simply because I have this ‘great responsibility’? She even dared to pull our Noni’s memory into this, saying how ashamed of me Noni would be. I think Noni would understand. Dori didn’t know about Noni’s mean streak. Especially when it came to those judgmental old biddies from the churches.

Anyhow, maybe I’ll ease up on Chey soon. I just want her to know she can’t play me.

April 19

I decided not to confront Chey about how she feels about Josh. It’s much funner to just let things roll and see what happens next, except I get confused a hell of a lot more now. I’ve got to get a handle on these feelings I get from everybody else. Doraleigh says I’ll learn to manage it, but god I might go freakin’ nuts first! I think I might know what a schizophrenic feels like; all these feelings are like all their voices in their head, all competing for attention. I’m supposed to start some grounding techniques with Doraleigh soon. She thinks she can help me rein these powers in some. God, I hope so.

Later…

April 13

I know it’s been a few days, but Mom got me sidetracked, first with one thing then another. I even had to hunt the woods behind the house for the twins. I found them with Hank’s little brother; they were target practicing with his pellet gun.

Anyhow, Uncle James let me leave early after Doraleigh lied her head off and made it sound like I was carrying the plague or something just as lethal and if I didn’t leave then it could kill me (now I’m exaggeratin’). So, we rode over to Dianne’s house. Huey, her husband, wasn’t home; just Dianne and the kids, Jett, Jasper, and Jade. Doraleigh didn’t make much sense on the way over to Dianne’s. She kept rambling on and on about when she got her inheritance. That’s what she calls it anyhow, her ability to see the future. Not clearly, like that chick in that vampire movie, more like bits and pieces of a movie or a dream that doesn’t quite make sense until the event she sees actually begins happening, then like déjà vu or hindsight, it all comes together. At least that’s how she described it when she first got it, her Sight she calls it, when she was sixteen. Now, four years later, I think she can totally see anything that’s about to happen. I know the rest of us can’t pull anything on her without her knowing. But, getting’ back on track,…she just wouldn’t shut up about how lucky I was to be getting a gift, that she and Dianne thought that only the girls would get them since Jesse didn’t get one when he turned sixteen like she and Dianne did. All I kept thinking was, I don’t want this gift if I’m going to be getting sweaty over guys.

Thank god we pulled into Dianne’s yard at that last thought. I was able to fling the door open and puke in the grass instead of Dori’s car. I really thought I was coming down with something. My stomach was knotted and I felt my face get hot and my neck start sweating; that’s about the time Dianne came out and told us that Jett was puking and probably had the flu. He didn’t feel good, and that we’d probably want to stay on the front porch or risk catching what he had. That’s when Dianne asked me if I was feeling alright, that I didn’t look so good. Dori looked worried as she stared at me, and I was beginning to get scared, but as soon as little Jade came running from the house squealin’ and laughing I immediately felt better. She threw herself around my legs and Dianne told me to be careful, that Jade had been rollin’ around with Jett all day and probably had the virus, too. But we sat on the front porch and I let Jade crawl all over me, her favor uncow, she calls me while Dori told Dianne about my problem.

Dori told her what happened at the garage and I told her what happened in Chemistry class and as she listened I kept feeling more and more confused. I was about ready to just tell them to forget it, I’d just hermit up until this gift went away, which was really impossible since, according to both of them, it doesn’t go away, when Dianne became very angry and yelled at us for coming over while her baby was sick and her house dirty, blah, blah, blah. Dori looked shocked, then confused, then calm. And in the same instant I was angry and screaming back, then shocked at my own response, and confused at Dori’s response, and finally a wash of calm came over me.

“What the hell was that!?” I yelled. Within five seconds all of those emotions had flown through me without so much as a pause for me to register it. And on top of that, the feelings I’d felt were full force, no holding back feelings of anger, confusion, and calmness. By the looks on their faces, they knew what had happened to me.

“That was your gift,” Dianne said. She smiled at Dori who looked at me like she’d just gotten the punchline of a joke.

“You can feel what others are feeling, DJ,” Dori said.

“Why couldn’t you see this and tell me earlier?” I asked.

“Because we needed Dianne to demonstrate it,” she said.

Dianne explained that she had forced all of those emotions on me to see if I could read them and reproduce them. Dori had to be there to see what would happen because that’s how her gift works. And Dori told me that what I felt for Benji and Josh had to be byproducts of what others around me had felt for both of them.

“I know for sure what you felt for Benji was me thinkin’ he was oh-my-god hot,” Dori said in her straight-to-the-point way. “Who was around you when you felt that way for Josh?” I picked up on her little sneaky smile, but ignored it.

“Only Cheyenne,” I said; then it came to me. Cheyenne has a thing for Josh! “Well, I’ll be damned! My girl’s got it bad for another guy!” I set Jade down off my lap and walked in the yard to kick a few rocks and basically act like a fool, cussing and kicking, before going back to the porch.

Dori said she was sorry, but Dianne said it was better to know now than to find out when something really cheatow (her made-up word) happened.

So, now my dilemma: confront Chey or let it roll and see what happens?

Later…

April 10

So, here’s what happened about that Josh thing…I texted Doraleigh and told her I needed to talk to her about some weird shit that went on in Chemistry that day. I expected her to call me or text me or something, but instead she shows up at work, at the garage. And that’s not really unusual, because she stops by Uncle James’s and Aunt Janelle’s all the time, and their house is right behind the garage…But I’m getting’ off topic. So, anyway, I explain to her the whole deal about the Chemistry class, and that freaky feelin’ over Josh, and it stoppin’ once I refocused on Cheyenne. And in the middle of my story I get that same freaky feelin’, all hot and excited, except this time it is over Benji, Uncle James’s full-time mechanic that is not a member of the family.

So, again, I’m like ‘what the hell!’ And I’m ready to tell Doraleigh all about it when I look over at her and she’s watchin’ Benji roll out on the creeper from under the truck he’s workin’on. So, I say “Dori, you got a thing for Benji?” And she says, “What are you talkin’ about?” And I’m like, “I just got that weird feelin’ again. Like the one I had for Josh, but this time it was for Benji. And that’s just gross!”

At first, her eyes squenched up all worried-like, and her mouth frowned, then suddenly her whole face lit up and she looked at me with these huge eyes. “Oh, my god, DJ,” she said. “I was just thinkin’ how cute Benji is. And I think you picked up on it.”

So, I’m like, “What are you talkin’ about?” I have no clue. Me into Benji? Whatever. Like I said, I’m no homo. So, I repeat myself, “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“You might have a gift, DJ. Like me and Dianne.” Dori was all excited, and her mouth ran a mile a minute, about all kinds of things, but all I could focus on was “a gift…” like her. So, I’m thinkin’, if this is a gift, I want to return it and get something better, because I don’t want to keep havin’ these sexual feelin’s for guys!

“No way! Un-uh, Dori! I do not want it, not if I have feelin’s for dudes!” I’m like freakin’ out over that and Dori tells me that she’s gonna ask Uncle James if I can leave early because I don’t feel well and she’s pretty much right about that: I feel disgusted. I don’t want to be attracted to guys. So I follow her to the car and…

Mom’s callin’. Gotta go, I’ll finish later.

April 08

So, get this: today I’m sitting in Miss Walters Chemistry class listening to her explain some chemical reaction and my jeans pitch a tent like I ain’t never seen! And I’m thinking ‘what the …’, but not because of the woody, because that’s like an everyday thing, especially with Chey sitting in front of me wiggling her sexy-ass bare shoulders and tossin’ her hair to get my attention…But I’m getting’ off topic…back to the woody…I got hard at the thought of Josh Stone!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no homo. There’s no freakin’ way I’m into guys, but sittin’ there in Miss Walter’s class, I don’t know, I just all of a sudden felt…hot…for Josh. And I’m like, ‘what the hell is going on?’ cause my skin starts crawlin’ like that time I grabbed the frayed lamp wire and exposed wires bit me. Like a live electrical current. And then, Chey turns around and looks at me with those luscious chocolate eyes, and I’m like, ‘Josh who?’ But talk about freaky!

So, as soon as class is over and I’ve deflated, I haul ass to Doraleigh’s room to tell her, only she’s not in there and I have to wait until after work when I get home to talk to her. She’ll know what to do, she always does.